Thoughts of a boys youth soccer coach in the northeastern United States

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Monthly Archives: May 2012

I’m assistant coaching a U16 boys team right now and we’ve been cursed with the mother of all helicopter mommies. Ok, there are probably worse but she’s the worst I’ve ever been forced to deal with. After every practice, it seems, she has an “issue.” Or rather, the 15 year old son she’s infantilizing does.

Earlier this month, she storms up to me immediately after practice and says that “Jason* told Crybaby 15 year old (her son), ‘If you touch me again, I’ll punch you in the face'” and demanded I do something about it. This means that the instant her son got into the car, Crybaby 15 year old whined to Helicopter Mommy about this nothing incident.

Of course, Helicopter Mommy didn’t ask about the first part of the sentence: why was Crybaby 15 yo repeatedly touching someone else?

When I spoke to Jason, he said that Crybaby 15 Year Old was repeatedly grabbing his neck and jerking his head down. In that situation, I would’ve told Crybaby to piss off too. He’s shown a repeated unwillingness to keep his hands to himself.

Several weeks earlier, Helicopter Mommy approached me and the head coach in the parking lot. She reported on a Facebook exchange that went something like this.

JOHN*: Soccer game tomorrow!

BILL*: Me and Joel won’t be there. =(

STEVE*: Damn we’re screwed.

Helicopter Mommy wanted us to denounce this behavior and speak to the parties involved. Of course, when I checked on Facebook, I discovered that Helicopter Mommy hadn’t even gotten her facts right… mis-stated who said what and exaggerated what was said. Again, this is a nothing incident. I mean, if I’d seen it in my Facebook travels, I would’ve said something. If I’d heard it said in practice, I definitely would’ve said something. But I’m not going to spend my time trolling around Facebook to see who’s calling whom a poopy head.

Yet another case of me having no idea who’s the adult and who’s the immature teenager in this situation.

All Crybaby 15 Year Old (who is causing a disproportionate amount of problems on the team in his own right) is learning is that if he has a problem, he just needs to complain to Helicopter Mommy and she’ll solve his problems, no matter how infintestimally minor.